This invention relates generally to the field of releasable latch-type devices employed for selectively interconnecting a pair of relatively movable members to form a closure. While the invention has particular application to the securing of a flexible shower curtain to the edge of a shower enclosure or the like, it will be readily appreciated that the invention has application to a variety of similar situations, such as accordian type interior doors and sliding interior panels and partitions.
It is known in the art to provide means for securing shower curtains in closed position to prevent or at least impede the passage of water outwardly of the shower enclosure and reduce the inward motion of the shower curtain, which may be an actual vertical shower enclosure, or a space located above a bathtub. Such devices have included vacuum cups, interconnectible fabric members (Velcro), weights attached to the lower edge of the curtain, clothes pin type clips and the like.
The use of most of the above constructions poses substantial disadvantages. Some are not readily installed by the user without resort to more than ordinary skills. Others are not very attractive from an aesthetic point of view. Still others are not readily operable by the wet hands of the user, and perhaps most serious, the cost of manufacture, in some instances is excessive.
What is, in essence, required in constructions of this type is a two-element interconnecting means which can be conveniently manufactured from rust-free, preferably synthetic resinous materials, which may be conveniently installed upon conventional tile-like surfaces of the shower enclosure, and to the outer surface of the shower curtain, adjacent an edge, using only ordinary skills, and which may be readily engaged and disengaged by the user with little force, without the use of precise motor movements.